The Value of Patience
by Staxia
Summary: The Leverage and Human Target teams both use the same ear buds. What happens if there's a frequency cross over when their two respective missions overlap? My first fanfic ever, so feedback is welcome. Eliot/Chance.


_Phut! Phut! Phut!_

Chance found himself flat on the ground, his body reacting to the noise before his brain had a chance to identify it as the sound of a T93 sniper rifle, silenced. He was gauging probable vectors before he caught his breath from the hard slam against the concrete, rolling to shelter against the wall to his right.

"_Ohmigod_! Are you okay?" asked a concerned, girlish voice.

Chance looked up, brain still calculating trajectories and probable sniper nests, and it took him a minute to register that he was in Harvard Yard surrounded by co-eds and professors wearing too much plaid.

"Fine," he flashed a smile at her and sprang to his feet. "Just tripped, these old brick walkways are tricky sometimes."

The girl cocked an eyebrow, looked at the smooth pathway - made of pavement - and muttered as she walked away. Chance took a minute to appreciate the view - long legs, short skirt, swaying ponytail - and then began to look around, discretely, he hoped, for the gun, the shooter, the target... anything.

"Guerrero," he said, putting his hand to his ear bud. "What's your 20? I've got gunshots in the Yard."

"Who the hell is this?" a deep voice suddenly snarled in his ear.

"Guerrero?" Chance frowned, his eyes scanning the crenellated tops of the Harvard buildings. "What's with the voice? And where the hell are you?"

"Damnit, Hardison, there's someone on our frequency!" the voice growled again and even over his adrenaline rush, Chance noticed that the rough rumble was smoothed by a slight Southern drawl, like a drizzle of warm honey over hard muscles.

_Phut! Phut!_

Chance heard the suppressed, flat little coughs of the T93 again and started at a sprint across the yard, vaulting over sunbathing blonde things as he triangulated the most probable perch for the sniper - on top of Widener Library.

As he ran, he noticed another runner, a man with long dark hair sprinting up the iconic steps of the library. Despite being dressed in natty tweeds and a frigging bowtie, for the love of God, he moved with the distinctively oiled ease of professional muscle.

"Winston, I hope you have the professor, I'm going after the sniper," Chance said, taking the stairs three at a time, close behind the handsome man in the blazer.

"Who the hell is Winston?" the strange voice growled again. "Get the hell off this frequency! Parker, the shooter is on the library."

Winston's voice boomed back, "I don't know who the hell you are, but you're the one who needs to get off this frequency! Chance, the professor is fine, just get the shooter!"

Chance put his head down and kicked his sprint into a higher gear, catching up with the muscle in the tweed just as they both burst through the door to the library. A flustered kid with bad acne got out the words, "Can I-" before Tweed Coat Guy flashed a badge and barked, "Campus Security! We've got a breech in the Rare Book Room!"

The kid fell back, stammering, as Tweed Coat slammed through. Chance flashed the kid a smile and made a silent gesture that clearly meant, _I'm with him_, and sailed through in the wake of chaos that Tweed left behind him.

Chance lightened his footsteps to run as silently as possible up the stairs behind Tweed, hoping he hadn't been noticed and watching Tweed's fine form. The man clearly had training and experience and great legs.

Behind him, there was a strangled squawk as the acne-faced kid garbled, "But the Rare Book Room is downstairs."

He reached the top of the third flight of stairs just as Tweed burst onto the roof in a violent lunge, not taking the time to even look around. He was a little overconfident, this guy. Needed to learn the value of patience.

Chance slowed to survey the situation from the relative safety of the door. There was the shooter at the edge of the roof - a tiny Asian woman, wearing Harvard sweats and a t-shirt, who was young enough to pass for a grad student coming back from a work-out. She was on her knees and breaking down the gun, stowing it in a gym bag.

Tweed let out a bellow and barreled towards the would-be assassin at a break-neck speed. Chance took a moment to worry about the poor man's momentum carrying him out into space. But most of his attention was taken by the blonde.

She was climbing up onto the roof from the _other side_ - the sheer drop down 50 feet - wearing all black and a high-tech harness, making the motion as natural as walking down the street. When the Chinese shooter spun to face Tweed, Blondie popped up over the side of the building, reached out, grabbed the black duffle bag, and replaced it with another one that looked identical. She held one finger up to her lips, winked at Chance, and then _jumped backwards into thin air._ Chance blinked. The whole thing happened so fast, he wasn't sure he hadn't imagined it.

Meanwhile, Tweed was facing off against the tiny Triad killer. He'd lost his jacket somewhere and Chance wasn't surprised to see the white dress shirt straining over arms that bulged with knots of muscle. This guy was definitely _not_ a professor. He was a hands-on professional and moved with a wolfish grace that Chance found appealing.

Triad Girl, caught with her gun in pieces, flew at Tweed with the brutal speed of a cat caught in a corner. She came fast and hard, expecting her flashing speed and tiny size to surprise her opponent.

Tweed countered neatly, blocking a punch with his left arm while lashing out with a hard blow with his right. They exchanged another flurry of shots - fast kicks and blinding punches - before the assassin dodged and skittered back.

Chance took the opportunity to move into Tweed's peripheral vision, blocking off her only route to the door. Once he knew that Tweed was aware of his presence, he said, casually, "Need any help? She's a member of the 14K Triad."

"Out of Hong Kong, I know," Tweed responded, never taking his eyes off the girl. "They have a very distinctive shooting stance."

Chance was distracted, for a second, by the timber of Tweed's voice. His was the throaty Southern snarl he'd heard over his ear bud. Shaking his head, Chance nodded at the girl. "She's trying to kill my client. I need to take her in alive."

Tweed spared a glance at Chance and his brows knit in a frown. What now? Clearly Chance had stumbled into something bigger than just one Harvard professor getting targeted by a Triad.

Suddenly, the ear bud squawked to life. "Now, Eliot, remember, you have to let her get away."

"Damnit, Nate, I don't like it!" Tweed muttered, though Chance could hear it clearly over the radio.

"Who the hell is this!" Winston shouted. "Chance, if you've got the assassin in sight, you've got to take her down."

"I don't know who you are, but we need her to get away!" the voice name Nate said, urgently.

While the two voices bickered, Chance and Tweed shared a sympathetic glance at each other, communicating in silence the universal frustration of front-line soldiers everywhere with the "masterminds" sitting safely back at HQ who were making decisions while _your_ ass was on the line.

The Triad killer took advantage of the distraction, scooped up her bag, and made a dash for the door. Chance lunged to stop her, reaching for his pistol. Tweed also lunged, careening into Chance, as if by accident. As their bodies collided, Tweed rumbled, _sotto vocce_, "Don't, man. Parker switched the bags."

Mind swirling, Chance... took a chance. He let Tweed knock him on his ass and let the girl get away.

As her dark ponytail disappeared down the stairwell, Tweed stuck out a hand and helped Chance climb to his feet. He had a strong grip and the calluses of a trained martial artist and shooter.

"Eliot Spencer," Tweed introduced himself.

"Christopher Chance."

As the two men shook hands, the voices on the ear bud kept bickering and a chorus of shouts rose from the Harvard quad below.

"I hope to hell you have a good reason for letting a Triad assassin get away," Chance inquired, his voice amiable.

Eliot flashed a blinding smile that crinkled the skin around his eyes and transformed his whole face from grim enforcer to boyish charmer. The change was so abrupt that it took Chance's breath away and he almost didn't hear Eliot's response.

"She got away, alright," he laughed. "With four kilos of C4 that are linked to the explosion in London last month and papers that prove that the 14K Triad has been bribing a U.S. Senator. Right into..." he sidled over to the roof's edge, "an FBI cordon. Look at that!"

Chance glanced down to see the girl tackled and cuffed by a pair of FBI agents wearing the signature blue jackets with yellow letters. A black man, in the same standard-issue windbreaker, glanced up at the two men on the building, and flashed a bright smile and a thumbs-up.

"I think," Chance said, slowly, taking it all in, "that we need to go get a drink." He glanced down at the grinning black man who was joined by the skinny blonde woman with such a complete disregard for gravity. "_All_ of us," he added.

Eliot offered a short nod of agreement.

Four hours, two bottles of scotch, and one very long and convoluted explanation later, Chance leaned back to survey the two teams sitting around the table in the other team's HQ.

"So, the hit on the professor was...?"

"Just a distraction," the brunette, Sophie, waved her elegantly manicured hand. "Sorry about that."

"And the gun?"

"Full of blanks, man," Eliot was sitting next to Chance and shrugged apologetically. His bicep brushed Chance's as he did.

Guerrero offered a one-shouldered shrug of his own. "Not every day that I get to help bring down a corrupt senator. It's a good day, dudes."

"Not bad," the threadbare Nate nodded. "Not a bad day's work at all."

That seemed to be a signal for everyone to leave. Guerrero and Parker - the blonde from the roof - left together, their heads together as they discussed some esoteric point of technical gear. Winston headed out with Hardison, the hacker determined to show the ex-cop how to change the frequency of the ear buds so that this sort of thing never happened again. Nate and Sophie had one last thing to mop up and headed out to the admissions office... something about getting some girl into Harvard Law.

That left the two hitters - Chance and Eliot - alone in the HQ. They each sipped their scotch in silence for a few minutes.

"A friendly round?" Chance smiled, gesturing towards the padded room where, clearly, Eliot worked out.

"Long as it's friendly," Eliot nodded and kicked off his boots, walking lightly to one corner. He clubbed back his hair in a Samurai tail and stripped off his t-shirt. Chance felt an unexpected flutter in his stomach - and lower - at the way the light moved over the flat hard muscles in Eliot's abdomen. Chance thought again that he moved with an oiled grace, sleek and efficient.

Watching the ex-soldier go through his warm-up katas, Chance stripped down to his sweatpants, taking a moment to glance at himself in the mirror, suddenly nervous in a way that had nothing to do with the upcoming sparring match. The sweats did nothing for his figure, but he couldn't think of any way to subtly suggest that he go change into something more flattering.

Eliot needed no flattering. He was wearing just a pair of faded blue jeans that rode low on his narrow hips. Low enough that Chance couldn't believe that the man was wearing anything _underneath_ them. For a long moment, he was mesmerized by the play of the muscles around Eliot's spine and the way they moved under the waistband, the way that the denim faded a little over the curve of his ass, the way that the slightly frayed hems brushed the back of his heel.

After a moment, he became aware of the fact that Eliot wasn't moving anymore and he dared a glance at the man's face. Eliot was watching him stare. A small, satisfied smile crinkled the skin around his eyes for a second, never quite touching his lips.

Chance looked away, his cheeks heating, his heart racing, and concentrated on his own warm-up.

"C'mon, Chance," Eliot said, after a few moments. "You're warm enough. Let's do it."

The two men circled each other in wary stances, bare feet making small sounds on the soft mat underfoot. Chance told himself he was watching the muscles across Eliot's chest because that's where a fighter telegraphed his moves.

Suddenly, the shorter man burst into motion, lashing out in a flash of feints. Chance slipped out of the way, feeling the wind of the blows cool his hot skin. Eliot fell back, a new and wary respect in his eyes. The ex-assassin grinned at his opponent, which made Eliot's face go into a stoic concentration as he refocused.

The kid was good. Very good. But he was young and hadn't yet learned the value of patience.

Another flurry of blows and Eliot still hadn't landed a hit and Chance still hadn't taken a swing. Eliot made a subsonic growl of frustration, the sound vibrating the soft skin around his throat. The motion distracted Chance for a second and Eliot stepped in with a sharp side kick that Chance had to dodge at the last moment, catching the foot in the big muscles on his thigh instead of in the weak hinge of the knee.

The hard impact of flesh on flesh made Eliot smile, a tight motion that made him look more dangerous than all his glowers and Chance took a step back, exaggerating his limp as he did. Eliot bounced forward, lightly, twisted to one side and faked a kick, at the same time launching a fast haymaker to the jaw.

Chance slipped under the brawny punch and inside Eliot's reach, locking hands around his outstretched arm and bringing one leg in for a hard sweep that sent them both to the mat in a quick fall. Eliot twisted in Chance's arms on the way down, lithe as an eel, and instead of the neat face-to-the-mat pin he'd hoped for, Chance found himself holding his opponent down on his back.

"You're good," Eliot growled and his rough voice rumbled against Chance's earlobe, sending shivers down his spine.

"Not bad yourself, kid," Chance smiled, bracing himself.

Eliot's sudden wrench underneath him, an attempt to throw Chance, was entirely expected. What he wasn't prepared for was Eliot's choice of distraction - a flicker of tongue along the shivering taut nerves in his throat that sent a spike of painfully hard pleasure rocketing down his spine and straightening his cock.

The jagged bolt of lust took Chance's breath away, but his combat reflexes let him ride Eliot's hip and keep the roll going, so that they wound up in the exact same position, just three feet over... and with Chance's thigh thrust between Eliot's. In the sweats, with their hips ground together like that, there was no hiding his body's reaction to Eliot's.

But, through the worn denim of the jeans, Chance was shocked to learn that Eliot's body had the same reaction to him.

Lifting his head, Chance found the younger man's eyes blue eyes dilated and dark.

Eliot arched his back, pushing the full length of his body against Chance's. Their bare chests met, skin sliding against skin, and Chance didn't fight this time when Eliot twisted his wrist out of the pin. Instead, he held perfectly still while his opponents' strong hand curled around his neck, tracing the taut tendons with calloused fingers.

When those rough fingertips feathered down the furrow of his spine, Chance moaned at the sensation, grinding his erection against Eliot's, the movement almost involuntary.

"We gonna do this, or what?" Eliot rumbled, his lips brushing against Chance's jawline.

Chance took a deep breath and nodded. He was rewarded with a hard grip against his ass and a harder kiss on his lips. The feeling of a man's mouth, with the slight scruff of the two-day beard contrasting against the soft lips, was new and unusual and intensely erotic.

Wondering how his scruff felt to Eliot, Chance flicked his tongue against the other man's earlobe, letting the coarse bristles tickle his neck. The motion tore a primal moan deep from the throat of his... opponent? Lover? Chance shook his head and instead focused on making Eliot make that noise again,

Tracing a line of soft, tickling kisses down the broad planes of Eliot's chest, Chance paused to flick his tongue tip over the tight brown nipple. He smiled when it elicited that same deep hungry sound, vibrating up through his whole torso. The growl of lust was almost a physical sensation, moving over his body like the torn edge of wet silk, causing a throb in his own cock.

"Wonder what happens when I do this?" Chance took the nipple gently in his teeth and pulled slightly, making Eliot's spine arch and his fingers tighten around Chance's shoulder. Chuckling down in his throat, Chance did it again, this time skimming his hang down over the subtle ripples of his stomach, enjoying the smooth feel of his skin over the hard coils of his muscles.

Chance threw one leg over Eliot and sat up, straddling the younger man's hips. He took a long look, to drink in the sight of Eliot sprawl on the dojo mats, his dark hair a tangle around his head. A slight sheen of sweat made his skin shine slightly in the golden light coming in through the windows. His biceps flexed and his arms bulged as he shifted his hands to hold onto Chance's waist. In particular, Chance was fascinated with the way that his hip muscles tapered down to a hard, smooth V that disappeared under his jeans. And there, peeking out of the waistband, was the rounded head of his cock, glistening very slightly.

"God, you're a beautiful man," Eliot purred, surprising Chance with his own thoughts spoken out loud.

"Right back at you," Chance beamed and slid his hands down Eliot's ribcage, following the line of muscles to that head, shyly poking above the faded denim. His hands hovered, barely touching, at the waistband, tickling the fine hair of his belly and getting closer and closer, but never quite touching, the main event.

Eliot panted in frustration, his breathing ragged and uneven, as his pulsed his hips, trying to make contact. Chance smiled to himself. The kid was good, but had never learned the value of patience.

Finally, driven as much by his own need as by his lover's, Chance dipped his head down to run his tongue along the tip, a flicker of flesh on flesh. The incredibly soft skin and slight salty taste surprised him, but Eliot's long shuddering exhalation urged him on.

Grabbing hold of the top button, Chance popped the button fly in a smooth, swift yank, laying bare his lover's cock. It was long and pink and perfect, bobbing in the sudden release from the tight jeans. A quick tug pulled them down to the middle of his taut thighs.

Never one to hesitate, Chance bent to run his tongue up the whole length, from the thick root to the very tip, and then back down, plunging the whole tumescence in to his mouth. The motion made Eliot's whole body come off the mat, his arms and legs quivering as Chance sucked hard, drawing his mouth slowly upwards and tongue laving along the ridge of the head.

Up and down, feeling the soft skin on his lips and tongue, Chance found himself perilously close to climax himself. Eliot's hands on the back of his head almost sent him over the edge as the soldier's calloused fingers moved roughly through his short hair, forcing him to down almost to the base, taking the whole length deep into his throat.

Now Eliot was making urgent, mindless sounds, his head thrown back, his hips pumping. Chance increased the tempo and reached around to grab Eliot's ass. The forceful grip made Eliot moan, open mouthed, and the frantic motion of his hips increased in Chance's hands until finally, with a wordless shout, he came, thighs clenching against Chance's knees, fingers digging into Chance's neck, cock pulsing into Chance's mouth.

With a swallow, Chance lifted his head to look at Eliot, sprawled on the mats, spent and panting.

"You're smiling," Eliot said, his usual growl softened to a gravely drawl as Chance climbed up to lay next to him.

"I am." He was grinning, actually. "Know why?"

Eliot arched an eyebrow and shook his hair back out of his face. "I have to guess?" he reached up and stroked the side of Chance's jaw with a gentle finger.

"It's because I've learned the value of patience," Chance leaned down and kissed Eliot and then rolled over onto his back. "But now it's your turn."

Eliot laughed, low and delicious, and rolled onto Chance, covering his lover's body with his own.


End file.
